Green Gators

  Chris has started to rake the soil next to our plot of crops to disrupt the weeds that has started to grow. We have also started this process to level out the soil and make it easier for the seeds of our cover crops we will plant there to germinate. In this section we planted mustard!  Once the soil plot that we wanted to place our cover crops has been raked, we started to spread our cover crop seeds throughout the soil. The cover crops for this portion of soil we placed were gold mustard and buckwheat. The mustard’s purpose is to see the possibilities of how many pests it can keep away. The buckwheat is for attracting beneficial pests for biological control and pollinators. We choose mustard and buckwheat to attract beneficial pollinators. Ryan is mixing more of the soil together in our plot for the cover crop seeds to mix deeper into the dirt.  A thicker layer of hay is being placed down around our marigold and nasturtium plants. Weeds are blocked from sunlight using ...

  Ryan F. Christopher S. Emily T. Kiara B. Identification of FOUR S.M.A.R.T. holistic management goals: Crop yield and quality   Our group will focus on high quality crops with high yields. We will do this by planting our crops closely and maximizing our vegetable crops in the plastic mulch bed and encouraging beneficial insects and pollinators by planting flowers in the uncovered bed next to the vegetables. We are using hay to suppress the weeds around the uncovered bed and the borders of the plastic mulch bed. We will manually weed nutsedge that comes up in  the plastic bed and any weeds that come through the hay will be removed as well. Agroecological design and environmental sustainability Our group will focus on integrated pest management by planting beneficial flowers such as Nasturtium, Marigold, Mustard, and Buckwheat. The marigold and Nasturtium will work as a natural pest control, alleviating the need for synthetic pesticides. We will plant buckwheat to attract ...